Signing

May not be perfect

If you’re anything like me, then you’ve daydreamed extensively about signing your first publishing contract. For me, this moment came at the end of long years of drafting and hoping and redrafting and wishing and reredrafting. There had been crushing rejections and moments of hope, encouragement and criticism, and a whole lot of determination.

This moment deserves to be dreamt about. This was my dream:

I’d be sitting in a sunlit room with books shelved artfully across the walls. You know, like in those period dramas where the hero and heroine don’t appreciate all the time they have to lounge around in spacious mansions.

I’d have acquired a chaise lounge. Now, I’m not entirely certain I’ve ever sat on one of these, but in my imagination I’m hecking comfy. Half sitting, half lounging. Totally elegant.

I’d be wearing the prettiest dress. Since I spend most of my life in dungarees, I would have apparently had a major wardrobe overhaul. Oh, and my hair would be up in a bun – a classy one with delicate tendrils around my miraculously blemish-free face.

I’d have a quill. Got to have a great big quill to sign anything of importance. And the contract would be on impressive card – the kind where you can tell someone has chopped down an extra special tree to make it.

The biggest thing – I’d feel happy. I’d feel successful. I’d feel like everything I’d been working for had come together. I’d know – in this perfect moment – that I’d made it.

Perhaps you don’t picture your moment of signing in the same way. You might even be more realistic than me and not expect a random mansion and a chaise lounge and a quill. You might expect that you’ll sign electronically and will probably have a spot on your forehead.

But I wonder if the feeling is what we want, when we strip away everything else. A moment to sit back and see our signature on a contract and say to ourselves, you’ve done it.

After all my dreaming, I would have settled for that. If I could have had a moment of gentle acceptance, that would have been lovely. Sadly, I didn’t feel much of anything when I signed my first publishing contract.

A week before my contract came through, my mum had a brain aneurysm. Six days before signing, my mum had surgery to clamp the artery in her brain and my mother-in-law had a planned stent replacement. My mum continued to have more surgeries over the next week, while my mother-in-law slowly came off breathing support. The day when I signed my contract, both my mum and mother-in-law were still in hospital.

(I want to interject here and say that both mums are now happy and healthy. They have recovered incredibly well and are back to their old selves.)

I almost put off signing. I’d had this perfect image in my head for so long and even though real life would never live up to it, anything had to be better than this. I decided to go ahead in the end. My mum is one of my biggest cheerleaders, and I knew she would be so cross at me for not signing.

I made sure my husband took a picture as I squiggled on our iPad. Under all the worry and sadness, I knew this was a big moment. I knew this was what I’d worked for and fought to achieve for a very long time. I knew I’d want to remember this monumental moment.

But at the time, I was incredibly numb. Signing with a publisher for the first time – my dream coming true – felt like nothing compared to both mums being happy and healthy. My brain was entirely taken up with them and there was nothing left for anything else, not even something so important and special.

The thing I’d forgotten to take into account as I dreamed about signing my contract, is that life doesn’t stop. We very rarely have those perfect days that are just good. There is always mix of highs and lows. Often they aren’t at such dramatic ends of the scale, but even on a lovely day we might step in a puddle or stub our toe.

Months have passed now, and both mums are well. Life has quietened down a little, and I can look back and feel so incredibly happy and proud about signing my first publishing deal. That moment wasn’t at all what I dreamed of – didn’t come remotely close – but it was an achievement and I have to keep telling myself it is real.

It’s hard not to elevate moments like this in our lives. We live in a society that celebrates the highlights reel. We only catch glimpses of the struggles. It’s easy to think that other people have perfect moments and we will too.

I guess what I want to say is, it’s okay for a moment you’ve longed for and worked for and dreamt of to be nothing like what you imagined it would be. It’s okay to feel a mix of emotions when you take a significant step forward with your writing. Life doesn’t stop and joyful moments don’t have to be purely joyful.

I am so happy my mum is well and my mother-in-law is too. I am so proud of signing my first publishing contract. It wasn’t what I imagined, but it is real.

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